This application is related to the type of reclosable container disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,082,944 and 6,015,062, and to the disclosure of the related published International Application Ser. No. PCT/US97/22074, entitled RESEALABLE BEVERAGE CONTAINER & TOP THEREFOR, filed 17 Nov. 1997. The invention disclosed herein is related to seals within a container cap having the general shape of an inverted cup that fits closely about and interacts with a container body having a neck. Such neck has a pour opening at its top and a plurality of thread lugs formed outwardly in the neck material, at a predetermined spacing below the pour opening. The thread lugs interact with a plurality of cap lugs extending inward from, and spaced about, the lower rim of the cap to draw the interior surface (or underside) of the cap central panel toward the pour opening to complete a seal between the neck and cap.
Previous such seal constructions for this style of container have included various types of seal materials applied to the cap underside, primarily a preformed, (or formed in situ) piece or ring, for example of polypropylene. Materials of such seals may vary with the type of content in the container, and there is a need to provide a different approach to placing seals of different compositions within the caps of such containers, as may be required to accommodate the needs of properly packaging different contents of the container. Such needs may involve pressurization or vacuum packing of the container contents, ability to withstand the high temperature and elevated pressure of retort operations after filling and closing, or possible exposure to wide ranges of temperature from other sources after filling and sealing. These are but a few potential requirements encountered in adapting such a container to a large variety of potential contents.